In a fresh twist in the tale that is set to question the integrity of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), it has been found that top RBI officials allowed certain banks to lend to Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) violating its own asset classifications guidelines. Vijay Mallya blames everybody except himself for Kingfisher Airlines disasterAccording to RBI’s assets classification norms on bank loans, there is no risk in lending to a firm whose assets fall under standard assets category. However, if a company’s assets come under sub-standard assets category, the firm gets declared as a non-performing asset (NPA).In 2008, during a routine annual financial inspection by the RBI of a Kolkata-based bank, the inspection team found that KFA was falling under the category of sub-standard assets. Clearly, that reflected the airline’s poor status of assets classifications and loan repayment for getting next fresh round of loans, the Pioneer reported, citing sources.”As per the RBI guidelines, we were conducting a routine exercise and inspecting bank books at one of the centres in a PSB, headquartered in Kolkata. During the AFI, we had observed that the total loan amount of Rs 3,000 crore, which had been provided to Kingfisher Airlines until 2008, was not falling under standard asset category. So, we had decided that the airlines firm should have declared as an NPA so as to stop any further financial assistance to be extended to the firm,” a source told the Pioneer.However, just when the inspection team decided to take steps to stop any fresh loan to KFA and declare the airline’s existing loan as NPAs, the team received a directive from top RBI officials, asking them not to turn the loan as NPA. And that, in turn, ensured the now defunct airline continued to get loans from the consortium of lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI).The source declined to disclose the name of the bank, but said the inspection was a routine affair of the RBI and the inspection team had acted as per their superiors’ order.”Thereafter, the above loan continued to fall under the category of a standard asset which was the gateway to get further assistance and thus the Mallya-owned firm remained eligible for the next round of fresh loans by the consortium of lenders led by SBI. As a result, the firm was extended several fresh rounds of loan amounting to a total of Rs 6,000 crore over and over again for years,” sources said.A RBI official, on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the development and said: “Had the RBI paid heed to the suggestions of the internal team and turned the already sanctioned loan as NPA, the firm would not have been able to go for a fresh round of loans. And thus our banks, which faced with huge NPAs as of today, would have been saved.”The airline managed to get most of the loans between 2006 and 2009 when Vijay Mallya was also a Rajya Sabha MP and reportedly lobbied the then governments for the revival of KFA.read more

The economic value generated by Eco coins will be distributed to the community through accounts created at Eco.com. The Eco Foundation will verify the identity of the initial nodes to help bootstrap the network across a broad geographic distribution. Eco cryptocurrency by Garrett CampCreative CommonsTaxi-hailing app Uber’s co-founder Garrett Camp is all set to introduce a new cryptocurrency named Eco into the global trading market. Eco is expected to be launched later this year and it will be the latest entrant in the list of nearly 1,400 varieties of crypto coins including bitcoin, ethereum to enter the fray.Introducing https://t.co/hojcQhgW5E 🙂 https://t.co/7hSRgEHgSf // @eco— Garrett Camp (@gc) 1 March 2018Eco is in the early stages of system design, and Camp has shared the details of the upcoming cryptocurrency.Here is everything you need to know about the new crypto asset:Eco will serve as a virtual currency that will be usable across the world for daily transaction purposes. The mission of the Eco Foundation is to develop a global currency protocol that is evenly distributed and extremely robust.The design proposal says that Eco aims to achieve the capacity of more than 100,000 transactions per second within a few years by using Transaction Sharding, where transactions are directed to specific shards for acceptance and validation, instead of the whole network validating the same transaction.(With inputs from Eco’s design proposal) Eco will be managed by an independent, non-profit organization — Eco-foundation, which will guide the development of the Eco protocol, with transparent governance and continual improvement. Mining of Eco is different from other cryptocurrencies. When a block is successfully mined in Eco, tokens are evenly distributed to all other nodes immediately. Eco seeks to address three issues within digital currencies: verification of network nodes, the usability of applications, and efficiency of transactions. One trillion Eco tokens will be issued and 50 percent of this will be provided to the first one billion verified human users who sign up and 20 percent will be allocated to verified nodes (partner universities) and their network of researchers and developers. Eco makes significant improvements by 1) forming verified network, where universities run nodes, 2) increasing overall token supply, and creating simple web and mobile apps, and 3) designing a system with more energy-efficient and coordinated token generation to reduce overall power consumption. Eco won’t follow the bitcoin’s worker-lottery approach. It operates based on collective incentive, rather than individual reward. Eco seeks to create a verified network of universities to help build an evenly distributed and cooperative financial infrastructure that is easy to use and energy efficient.read more

US President Donald Trump departs from Andrews Air Force base in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, DC, US. Photo: AFPPresident Donald Trump hit back at critics within his own party Wednesday, painting them as outliers in what is otherwise a “love fest” between him and Republican lawmakers.A day after Republican senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker described Trump as having a “flagrant disregard” for truth and decency and of “debasing” the nation, the combative president shot back.Trying to forestall a broader party backlash, Trump tweeted that Flake and Corker were resigning because they had “zero chance of being elected,” and insisted his meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill a day earlier had been a resounding success.“The meeting with Republican Senators yesterday, outside of Flake and Corker, was a love fest with standing ovations and great ideas for USA!” he continued.Trump’s allies cheered Flake’s departure as an unbridled victory for their effort to take over the party and a “monumental win for the entire Trump movement.”It “should serve as another warning shot to the failed Republican establishment that backed Flake and others like them that their time is up,” said Andy Surabian, a former Trump White House advisor.Still, while the departure of the two senators may ultimately play to Trump’s advantage, both will remain in Congress for more than a year and will be less likely to fall in line behind the White House on key votes.No room for defectionsTrump had already faced a difficult task of mustering 51 votes to pass tax cuts, an effort that appears to be the glue holding the party together.There are currently 52 Republican senators, so more than one defection would hamper reform efforts, unless Democrats can be brought on board.It is also far from clear that more hardline Republican candidates can beat Democrats in places like Flake’s native Arizona, where Trump campaigned hard in 2016 yet won by less than four percentage points.Many Republicans see Trump’s presidency as the best way to enact long-standing goals like tax reform and cutting the size of government, and the White House has worked hard to keep the rank and file focused on those targets amid rolling scandals and failed attempts to pass legislation.“Working hard on the biggest tax cut in U.S. history. Great support from so many sides. Big winners will be the middle class, business & JOBS,” Trump also tweeted Wednesday.“I’ll tell you what, honestly, the Republicans are very, very well united,” he said.The White House points to the president’s solid approval ratings among Republican voters as evidence that his brand of politics should dominate the party.According to an Economist/YouGov Poll, 84 percent of Republican voters approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president.‘Not a watershed’Against that backdrop many Republicans privately express grave misgivings about Trump’s behavior in office, but remain publicly supportive.“Parties always have their disagreements. Look no further than Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party. That’s just part of party politics,” Senator Steve Daines told AFP.Political science professor Larry Sabato said Flake’s attack on Trump was a “beating” for the president, but is “not going to be a watershed.”“I always tell people JFK’s book ‘Profiles in Courage’ was a very slim volume.”Yet there is no doubt that Flake and Corker’s comments have exposed a simmering battle for the soul of the Republican party.Establishment conservatives—who have managed since 2007 to co-opt waves of populist and nationalist party insurgents—have struggled to retain control since Trump’s election.Senator Marco Rubio admitted the party “is going through a moment of realignment internally.”He cited “an internal debate about what the party is going to be about, what it’s going to represent in the years to come. So is the Democratic Party. And by the way, so is every institution in America.”read more

A fire broke out at two godowns of a jute mill in Chengunia area of Abhaynagar upazila on Thursday afternoon, reports UNB.The fire began from an electric short circuit around 2:30pm at a warehouse of Roman Jute Mill in the area, said Wadud Hossain, assistant director of Jashore fire services and civil defence.The fire soon spread to a nearby yarn godown, he said.Around 3-4 maunds of raw jute and 40 tonnes of yarn were gutted in the fire, claimed Mohammad Ali Kasari, the owner of the mill.On information, two firefighting units from Abhaynagar and Jashore rushed to the spot and brought the flame under control after 45 minutes’ effort, said Wadud.The loss incurred due to the fire could not be known immediately.read more

The Trump Administration says it wants to work out its differences with Mexico over paying for a border wall, but the president’s tough talk has still strained relations between the two countries. That’s being watched in Texas, where cross-border energy ties continue to strengthen.The federal Energy Information Administration says the U.S. has exported more and more gasoline to Mexico in recent years, and that trend is likely to continue. For refineries on the Gulf Coast, that’s great news.“Houston has become the de-facto refinery for Mexico,” says Jorge Piñon, Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Energy Program at the University of Texas. He says the city’s refineries export close to 500,000 barrels per day of gasoline and clean diesel to Mexico.According to Piñon, refineries in Mexico just haven’t been able to keep up with gasoline demand because of a variety of maintenance and capacity problems, so the country has been importing more from the U.S.But President Trump has promised to re-work cross-border trade, calling the North American Free Trade Agreement a “disaster.”Despite the tensions, Piñon says the new administration probably wants to be careful about shaking up trade when it comes to energy.“If by any chance we strain that relationship, Mexico then turns to buy its gasoline needs from another supplier – guess who’s going to suffer?” Piñon asks. “It’s going to be American jobs.”While “America First” was a big Trump promise, so were “jobs, jobs, jobs”, and here in Texas, some of those jobs depend on healthy ties with Mexico. 00:00 /01:17 To embed this piece of audio in your site, please use this code: Listen X Shareread more

A secret audit of an acclaimed D.C. high school hints at widespread enrollment fraud to avoid $12,000 more in tuition charged to nonresidents.Famed arts school Duke Ellington School of the Arts is under fire after wide spread enrollment fraud was revealed. (Courtesy photo)State Superintendent of Education Hanseul Kang told The Washington Post Tuesday the annual audit of student residency at D.C. schools uncovered “specific concerns” at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Public records associated with students’ parents found reasons to suspect claims of D.C. residency.Initial results were shared in December with the state superintendent’s and attorney general’s offices, but kept secret until the Post report.About 70 of Ellington’s 566 students are on record as living outside the District, and their families pay tuition to the school system. The probe is focused not on those students, but on the majority who claim to be D.C. residents.read more